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[This is the final part of episode one of Snakebite McMuffin. If you feel lost and confused you may want to check out parts One, Two and Three].

“Well,” said Felicity, “it’s like this…”

The words hung in the air, for what seemed to Snakebite like just short of a week.

“Like what,” he said.
“I don’t know… I don’t know how to say it.”
“Well just speak, you know, in English. I’m sure I’ll understand.”
“I’m trying to, Mr McMuffin… Snakebite. I’m trying, but it’s hard. Haven’t you had anything that you’ve found hard to say?”
“Yeah, sure, for a while I found it hard to admit that I was addicted to eating terrapins”.
“That’s awful. How did your family react?”
“It was a turtle disaster. My sister’s still shell shocked. See sometimes something sacred seems strange. Secret’s so seriously secret. So she seemed strange. Sis sensed some sincerity somewhere surrounding Snakebite. Snakebite seemed sound so suddenly she suggested some strawberry sundae.”
“Strawberry Sundae?”
“Surprised?”
“Certainly.”
“Yeah, it was a bit weird. But it is something I find hard to say.”

McMuffin looked her up, and to a certain extent down, and noticed something on her leg.
“Is that,” he asked, “a tattoo?”

There was a small tattoo nestling on her right ankle. Snakebite admonished himself for not having spotted it earlier.

“No.” Felicity moved her leg backwards as though that would stop Snakebite from being able to see it.

“Yes it is,” Snakebite moved forward as thought that would help.

“It’s not a tattoo it’s a birthmark.”

“But it can’t be a birthmark. Are you sure it’s not a tattoo or mud or something.”

“Mr McMuffin, I do not have mud on my leg.”

“But… But… It simply can’t be a birthmark.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because I was at your birth and you didn’t have one then.”

“What? You were at my birth? My father must have trusted you!”

“Well, actually you were born in a pizza restaurant. You were very early. I just happened to be another customer. But I drove you and your family to the hospital. I remember what your father said, ‘For a large man you were surprisingly willing to give up the rest of your pizza’. I never had the heart to tell him that I was planning on sending back that pizza anyway, they’d put anchovies on it when I’d expressly said, ‘no fish’ when ordering. But I think it made your father trust me.”

“Well that’s quite a story.”

“Yes it is, but it isn’t as fascinating as the story I now want to find out. I need to know how you got that birthmark. That’s what I must find out. I’m sorry I must know this before I accept your case.”

“Don’t worry Mr McMuffin, we’re investigating the same thing. That was what I was hear to find out as well.”

And with that McMuffin and Trousers shook hands and walked off to get a coffee to celebrate the beginning of a rather unusual friendship.

[Snakebite McMuffin will return… At some point.]

Back to me writing for Part 3

[This is part 3 of the 4 part story, Snakebite McMuffin. Before reading part 3 you may want to check out Part 1 and Part 2.]

Snakebite had just mentioned how much he admired Felicity’s clothing, but that was simply him skirting round the issue.

“So what can you tell me about this case Miss Trousers?”
“I can’t tell you anything about the case until you agree to take it. I know the rules.”
“Well I don’t, Miss Trousers. I’ve never met a rule I wouldn’t break to break a case wide open. I’m wide open to breaking rules – you could say.”
“I’m not sure I could.”
“Really? It’s just a few words?”
“No I mean, I couldn’t say if those words applied to you Mr McMuffin.”
“Call me Snakebite.”
“Okay, I couldn’t say if those words applied to you Snake… No I really prefer Mr McMuffin.”
“Please yourself Ma’am.”
“Don’t call me Ma’am, I’m not a old lady.”
“Well don’t call me Mr McMuffin. Mr McMuffin was my uncle.”
“What was your father?”
“He was Mr McMuffin’s brother.”
“No, I mean what was he referred to as?”
“‘Mr McMuffin’s brother’, I just told you. His whole life he never once engaged anyone in direct conversation so people just referred to him indirectly.”
“What not even your mother?”
“No, she was a deaf, blind, mute, autistic son of a bitch – but I loved her, and so did he – not that he said.”
“You had quite an odd childhood.”
“By all accounts, so did you Miss Trousers.”
“What do you mean by that?”

Snakebite could see she was unsettled by this. Partly because she took a step backwards, but partly because she lost her balance and fell to the floor. Snakebite rushed forwards to help her up, but she was already getting up and they knocked heads.

“Sorry,” she said.
“No, it was my fault,” said Snakebite.
“I was taken aback.”
“Literally.”
“Yes, that’s why I said it.”
“Indeed.”
“I just wasn’t expecting you to know anything about my childhood.”
“Well I told you, your father trusted me.”
“But how much? How much did he trust you?”
“Well he let me borrow his 1st edition pressing of the White Album which had been signed by all of the fab four and rather bizarrely Elvis.”
“But father never let anyone borrow his 1st edition pressing of the White Album which had been signed by all of the fab four and rather bizarrely Elvis.”
“Well he didn’t let anyone but me borrow it.”
“He must have trusted you.”
“Yes. He did.”
“And you in turn returned his trust?”
“Well lets just put it this way, I returned his record.”

Miss Trousers visibly crumpled at this point. Snakebite knew that if he was going to press forward with this case then he was going to have to iron out some of the details.

“So, Miss Trousers. Your father trusted me. You can trust me. Please. Tell me what is the nature of this case?”
“Well,” said Felicity, “it’s like this…”

[What is it like? Tune in for the final part on Friday next week (or thereabouts)]

In a surprise twist, Part 2 of this story has been written by Nick. I hope to get a third outsider to write part 3. If you fancy giving it a go, then either drop me an e-mail or leave me a comment on this post. In exchange for Nick writing part 2 of this, I will be writing a post for Nick’s Stranded Cinema which should hopefully be appearing today and tomorrow, I’ll post the link in the comments here. But for now, on with the story.

[This is part 2 of the 4 part story, Snakebite McMuffin. Before reading part 2 you may want to check out Part 1.]

‘Oh, your father trusted me, Miss Trousers. But that’s exactly why he never hired me. If you trust someone, it makes you vulnerable.’

Snakebite could see he now held the upper-hand, although neither of them were playing cards. She didn’t know the true nature of his relationship with her father, the old bastard. Perhaps it would be better to keep that to himself. After all, where had she come from? Trouser had never mentioned her to Snakebite before, only that she went to school ‘out of town’, and there were rumours she wasn’t even his daughter.

‘Even so, Mr McMuffin, he never hired you. But I want to. Will you take the case?’

He paused, and reached towards the draw where he knew his bottle was waiting for him. But no, that could wait. He needed a clear head. And besides, if he had a drop, he’d have to offer her one. His stuff was too hard to get hold of to go dishing it out to some dame, even if she was heir to the Trouser millions.

‘What does the case involve?’

She frowned and shook her head, taking her gloves off and sitting seductively on the corner of the desk in front of him.

‘Now, detective, I read on your door the motto of this agency: No questions. Only answers.’

‘With so much money involved, someone’s gonna ask questions. It might as well be me. If I so much as smell a suit, I’m not interested.’

‘Trust me, there’ll be no lawyers involved. Now, will you take it?’

She reached her hand out across the desk to be shook, confirming the deal. Snakebite let her hang it there for as long as possible. He looked her in the eyes. Damn she had pretty eyes, just like her mother. He turned away and stared at the clock on the wall. It had stopped ticking a long time ago, almost three years now. The glass was cracked. The small hand was on 5 and the long hand rested just after 8. Her hand was starting to waver, somewhere between 3 and 4. He took it in his gently.

‘I’m not interested.’

She withdrew her hand sharply.

‘Now I’d heard you were eccentric, Mr McMuffin. But this case, I don’t need to remind you, could help you pay off a lot of your debts.’

‘I don’t have money problems’ he said, smiling to himself ‘just a lot of friends who always make me buy the drinks’.

‘Then perhaps I can interest you in something else.’ She leant over the desk, arching her back, and whispered sensually in his ear: ‘Something your friends can’t give you.’

A bead of sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes. He blinked, but remained still. It was hot. He really should get the air-conditioning fixed in his office. ‘What air-conditioning?’ his secretary had asked on her first day there. ‘The windows’ he replied.

‘I’m still not interested. The stakes are too high, and I don’t have a ladder.’

She frowned and moved away, slowly stood up, straightened her skirt and turned her back to him.

‘Very well, detective. I hoped it wouldn’t come to this.’

Snakebite knew what was coming. He slowly reached his hand out to the draw on the other side of his desk and began pulling it open.

‘I thought you’d be more intelligent’ she said, opening her handbag and taking something slowly out of it. ‘I’m disappointed in you.’ She turned back suddenly, and Snakebite found himself staring at the barrel of a gun. ‘Now, will you take my case?’ she asked. ‘Or will you take a bullet?’

Snakebite took a deep breath. He had his draw fully open by now but didn’t want to make any sudden moves and startle her. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the shadow of a large man outside his door. He heard a car pull up on the street below. He looked her up and down. She had a great figure, and her clothes accentuated it perfectly.

He said, slowly, staring her in the eyes: ‘That’s a nice skirt, Miss Trousers.’

[What will Snakebite do? Will she shoot him? What’s he got in his desk? Who’s outside his door? And can he fix the air-conditioning in his office?]

Snakebite McMuffin leaned back on his creaking office chair and tried to think. This had been a complicated case, it was one where it paid to consider all of the angles. With a moments trepidation he wrote down 19.7 degrees. There, he had solved it. There was the proof.

It was with that word, “proof”, hanging in his mind that he turned his mind to another kind of proof. One that was lurking in his bottom drawer. One that was significantly stronger than 19.7 degrees proof. He slid the drawer open and reached inside. His he drifted his hand forward until his knuckles gently tapped on the bottle. It was, he always felt, like he was knocking to be let in. He turned his hand and grasped the bottle fully. The cold of the bottle searing into his sweaty palm. He had only just started to pull the bottle towards him when…

BBLLLEEEEEEP!

He let go of the bottle and slammed the drawer shut. He did it a little too hard and then had to open the drawer again, pick up the bottle, right it, and then carefully close the drawer. He had just done this when…

BBBLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEEEP

Snakebite hit the intercom switch with his fist and shouted, “YeahWhaddaYaWant”.

“Dame here to see you”.

“Okay. Send her in.”

A woman here? In the office? He couldn’t believe it. He looked around at the mess of pizza boxes and chinese takeout cartons and shrugged. If she wanted to hire him she had to accept that he was going to have to go on a lot of stake-outs. His secretary had at first complained about how she didn’t think he really needed to bring all of the boxes back with him. But he’d explained how it helped with keeping expenses in order.

But just as he looked up to the door in readiness for her arrival, whoever she was, he saw a pile of personal photos relating to another case on the other side of the desk. Old Snakebite may have been a slob but he wasn’t sloppy. He could not afford for her to see those photos. He leapt up from his chair and ran round the desk. The movement of air that this created blew the photos off the pile and right onto the floor. He was still scrabbling around down there when the door opened and she stepped in.

From where he was kneeling the first thing he noticed was her dark red heels and then as he looked up there were her legs which seemed to go on for miles and miles or at least for a good number of feet.

Snakebite picked himself off of the ground and as he raised himself he appraised the woman opposite him. She was wearing a deep red skirt and matching jacket, a cream dress shirt, blonde hair and lips that seemed to say, “Snakebite McMuffin I presume”.

“What?” asked Snakebite.

“You are Mr McMuffin aren’t you?”

“Yes, yes, sorry yes,” he replied as he wiped his hand on his shirt and proffered it for shaking.

The lady, initially and almost instinctively had started to offer her hand so she could shake the one that was being swung her way. But then she noticed the stain that Snakebite’s hand had left on his shirt and she withdrew it.

Snakebite decided that a different tack was in order so he straightened himself up and ambled back towards his side of the desk. As he walked he said, “I see you know my name, but I’m afraid I don’t know yours. Ms…?”

“Miss Trousers. Miss Felicity Trousers”.

“Felicity Trousers,” Snakebite repeated looking and sounding a little surprised, “as in Felicity Trousers, heiress to the Trouser Millions?”.

“Yes,” she looked at him sternly, “that Felicity Trousers. You look a little surprised, detective.”

“Well yes I,” he paused clearly weighing up the right way of phrasing something, “well yes I suppose I am. It’s just that your old bastard of a father, no offence, didn’t tend to farm out any jobs to me. He always used the big boys uptown.”

“What Pry, Vate and Dick?”

“Yeah that outfit.”

“He certainly did. But I need to use somebody else Mr McMuffin. I surely do. I need somebody my father never dealt with, somebody my father never trusted. Are you that man?”

[What would Snakebite do? Would he take the case? Tune in next week to find out (hint: yes he does take the case)]